In recent years, portable apparatuses such as portable telephones and tablet terminals that are equipped with touch panels (in some cases referred to as touch screens) are being provided. A touch panel is a device that combines the functions of a display unit such as a liquid crystal display and a position input unit such as a touch pad that supplies position signals that indicate the touch positions of an indicator such as a finger within the screen.
In the above-described portable apparatuses, when a user touches a portion of the screen with a finger, the position input unit supplies a position signal that indicates the touch position of the finger on the screen. A control unit then controls the display of the display unit in accordance with the position signal from the position input unit.
FIG. 1 shows an example of the display of a screen. Referring to FIG. 1, a plurality of icons 101 is displayed on screen 100 of the display unit at a fixed spacing. A specific function such as the activation of an application is assigned to each of icons 101.
When the user touches the position of a desired icon 101 on screen 100 of the display unit with a finger, the position input unit supplies a position signal that indicates the touch position of the finger within screen 100, and based on this position signal, the control unit specifies icon 101 that corresponds to the touch position of the finger within screen 100. The control unit then both executes the function that is assigned to icon 101 that was specified and controls the display on screen 100.
However, if icon 101 is small with respect to the size of the finger, and moreover, if the spacing between icons 101 is narrow, then when a desired icon 101a is designated by the finger, for example as shown in FIG. 2, a portion of the touch area of the finger will cover adjacent icon 101b, and there will be consequently cases in which the control unit mistakenly recognizes adjacent icon 101b as the icon that is designated. In this case, a function will be executed that differs from the function desired by the user.
A touch panel that can solve the problem of erroneous designation of an icon is disclosed in Patent Document 1.
In the touch panel disclosed in Patent Document 1, the size of the icons is changed according to the touch area of a finger. More specifically, when the touch area of a finger is greater than the display area of an icon, the display area of the icon is made larger. By enlarging the icons, a user is able to reliably designate the desired icon by finger.
When a plurality of icons is displayed and the icons following enlargement are not accommodated within the screen, the icons following enlargement are displayed on a plurality of pages. At this time, the icons following enlargement are displayed rearranged in a predetermined order.